


Am I A Masochist, Resisting Urges To Punch You In The Teeth?

by itcanprobablysmellfear



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, F/F, POV Catra (She-Ra), Scorpia (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Scorptra was at least kind of there, Stream of Consciousness, This is a sad one my dudes, and I know what Noelle said, but like, but not really, listen I'm a catradora bitch through and through, no beta we die like men, rated M for hinted spice, set somewhere towards the end of season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itcanprobablysmellfear/pseuds/itcanprobablysmellfear
Summary: Adora was gone, Adora had been gone, and Adora would always be gone. The portal showed Catra that much. Even in the perfect universe, where everyone and everything was so blindingly, sickeningly crafted to be anything Adora could have ever wanted, she still left. She still left me. She’ll always leave me.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Am I A Masochist, Resisting Urges To Punch You In The Teeth?

**Author's Note:**

> This morning, I got up and went for my run and had my Spotify on shuffle. "Night Shift" by Lucy Dacus came on, and I proceeded to listen to it on repeat for the entire three miles and by the time I finished I decided I Needed To Write This. (The way she sings "so I'll take the night shift" in the last chorus Broke Me) 
> 
> It's half story, half stream of painful, suffering consciousness that poured out of me faster than anything I've ever written before. Sorry for dragging you peanuts down into the Sad Zone with me. But also not sorry. We're all just a bunch of tearful queers anyway. 
> 
> Title (if it wasn't obvious) comes from "Night Shift" by Lucy Dacus

Adora was gone.

Adora _was_ gone, Adora _had been_ gone, and Adora _would always_ _be_ gone. The portal showed Catra that much. Even in the perfect universe, where everyone and everything was so blindingly, sickeningly crafted to be anything Adora could have ever wanted, she still left. _She still left me. She’ll always leave me._

Enough time had passed that the thought wouldn’t get stuck in Catra’s throat, bitter with the taste of childish giggles and nights spent wrapped in pudgy arms, too young and innocent to understand why home was never more or less than those sweet moments in time. By the time she had the words to outfit the thrill her heart expressed whenever Adora smiled at her, slate eyes crinkling at the corners, the blonde had walked away with a sword strapped to her back, and Catra spent every waking hour drowning anything soft or gentle she could find within herself. Now, every memory was colored red with anger, and instead of crying Catra got to smile at the promise that she was going to hurt Adora just as much as she hurt her. 

So what if all of Catra’s edges were as ragged and sharp as shattered glass as a result? So what if she cut herself--and everyone around her--with words honed by her predator’s teeth? She didn’t matter. Everything she had suffered and endured and witnessed, sometimes alone, sometimes hand-in-hand with a certain gap-toothed girl, didn’t matter. The scars littered under her fur that she would itch when the weather threatened to turn, the deeper ones slashed over her heart that she refused to dwell on until she was alone in the dark and they would throb so loudly she had to throw off her covers and run to Scorpia’s room just to get them to  _ shut the fuck up _ ...are you seeing a pattern? Catra didn’t matter, so naturally, no one else did either. That’s what she told herself anyway. It was the first piece of armor she outfitted herself with in the mornings, and the last thing she removed before she climbed into her cold bed.  _ You don’t matter, so no one else does too.  _ It worked, so long as it was true, until so very suddenly and completely out of nowhere the second half proved itself a lie and Catra had to amend her first statement. 

Adora was gone, and now too, was Scorpia. 

This betrayal--because of course it was, thinking about it any other way meant ripping down the walls Catra spent the past two or so years building and exposing just what she had dedicated that time to hiding away--felt different on her skin than the first. She and Scorpia didn’t have the years she shared with Adora, so the large woman’s absence didn’t sting as much, but it irked her all the same. Catra stood in the former force captain’s room and took in everything that had been left behind. She caught a glance of herself in the mirror, bracketed by clothes scattered on the floor and empty picture frames criss-crossed with broken glass, and hated that she numbered among the items Scorpia didn’t care enough about to bring along. 

It didn’t make any sense. Hadn’t she always told Catra how good she was? A good leader, a good friend, a good...well, the Magicat never let her finish that sentence. “I’m...I’m not…” she had swallowed, chasing after her breath as she panted with her back against Scorpia’s door, suit pants bunched around her ankles but otherwise fully clothed. She had gestured between them, her voice ascorbic. “ _ We’re  _ not…”

Scorpia had cut her off this time. “That’s okay, Wildcat.” Her dark eyes were far too soft and far too full of the word Catra refused to hear as she looked down at the feline. “I can wait.” Their first time had happened just after the Princess Prom. Adora’s desperate, defeated expression as she hung off the edge of the ice, dangling over an abyss that looked like it would never end, filled Catra with such an ecstatic, vindictive high her hair stood on end and her vision blurred at the corners. The second the aircraft had touched down in the Fright Zone and Adora’s stupid little friends were securely deposited, Catra’s mouth was on Scorpia’s. Before, when she was a kit and her pent-up energy left her twitching in her seat, she would have to claw or bite or scratch in order to finally be still, sometimes on an inanimate object but usually on Adora. Later, it translated into punches or kicks, eventually graduating to defiant acts against Shadow Weaver ranging from defacing the wall by her cot to actually blowing up a robot. Even the times she was caught and her body would ache for days after from the sorceress’s punishment, the release brought about by watching something crumple and fall apart as a direct result of her actions always left the Magicat purring and satisfied. Catra was made for destruction, and oh was she very,  _ very _ good at it. 

So when she had dragged the white-haired woman to her room and fisted her claws in her beautiful black dress, that was the only thing filling her brain. Catra wasn’t blind to the warm, longing ways Scorpia looked at her, or the way her embraces lingered just a little bit longer than the hugs she gave out to other officers and cadets. The feline knew the effect she had on her, and was fully counting on using that effect to bring the force captain to her knees, literally and figuratively. That  _ was _ the plan, at least, until Catra released her lips to bite along her neck and Scorpia spoke. “ _ Catra _ ,” she whispered, and her name sounded like a prayer rolling off her tongue. “ _ Catra, _ ” so fervent and so affectionate, almost as if the Magicat was a figure to be cherished, to be adored, to be lov--. Catra silenced the speaker and the thought with another searing kiss. 

It continued this way until Catra found Mara’s ship. She never paid attention to just how many times she sought distraction in Scopria’s arms. The brunette never called it “comfort,” to say she needed comforting was to imply that she was suffering, and Catra would rather cut her own beating heart out of her chest before admitting anything that smelled faintly of weakness. But the nights she would awake in a cold sweat, the dream visions of blue-gray eyes and long blonde hair following her into consciousness, it was only the scorpion woman who could banish them back to the darkness. Other times, it was nightmares of a masked face and red electricity that made her old scars ache that would drive her steps to the other force captain’s room. Those times...it was easier to accept Scorpia’s gentle touches and even gentler words. She let the white-haired woman tangle their legs together, after, and even reciprocated a few times. If sometimes she would slip, and the three-syllable name she used during those entanglements started with an “A” instead of an “S,” that just made Catra try harder, kiss her longer. Scorpia never said anything, she didn’t even have the decency look hurt. She would just bury her face in the brunette’s wild hair and press her lips to her temple. 

“We could, you know, be happy.” Catra felt deliciously free in the Crimson Waste. The fights she won with nothing but her claws and her wits, and the resulting command she respected from the lizard gang,...skies above she never once in her life felt this powerful before. Even on the battlefield at Bright Moon, leading the entirety of the Horde’s army with tanks and cannons and all the firepower Entrapta’s strange but brilliant mind had invented hadn’t been as intoxicating as this, lounging in the captain’s chair, her ears filled with her collected brigands cheering her name over and over again. 

“We could, you know, be happy.” Catra even forgot her anger in that moment. It was a little frightening. She had been holding onto it for so long, she was afraid there would be nothing left of herself the moment she retracted her claws and let it go. But Scorpia was talking about  _ not going back _ and  _ ruling _ and  _ together, _ and it had been so long since Catra thought about more than just five minutes into the future that she didn’t know how to, until the other woman showed her how. The way her heart beat when Scorpia said “just the two of us” felt the same as when Adora smiled at her. Up until then, all of their trysts were just an expedient to the Magicat, and on the surface, she told herself that that must be how the white-haired captain felt too. Standing in the blue light of the First One’s ship, clutching the stupid sword that started all this mess in the first place, Scorpia’s words gently but firmly showed her just how much she was deluding herself, at least in regards to the taller woman. 

“We could, you know, be happy.” Catra wondered how different things would be if she had stayed. If she didn’t go talk to Adora and instead walked back into the main deck, hand-in-claw with Scorpia, and looked for the fulfillment she never found in the Horde’s ranks in the Wastes and her tall second-in-command instead. Maybe if she stalled, even just a minute, she wouldn’t be here now, in the once-captain now-princess’s room, alone. But she didn’t have the energy for introspective thoughts, for change and growth and a future that seemed too bright for her dim eyes, and she left, clutching She-Ra’s weapon.

“I have to go check on the prisoner.” Walking away felt cold, so she slipped a quick kiss to Scopria’s lips.  _ I’ll think about it _ , she hoped it conveyed.  _ I want to be happy. Maybe I can be happy with you.  _ The warmth in her chest lasted long enough for Catra to feel comfortable with it, to believe she could grow accustomed to it, and then Adora said Shadow Weaver was in Bright Moon, and it snuffed out so quickly the Magicat missed its exit. 

_ You don’t matter, so no one else does either.  _ Another person who left her. Another person who confirmed her masochistic mantra. When Catra almost walked into Scorpia and made her pledge to open the portal, it was the first time she saw the white-haired woman ever look sad. It was one of the things the feline tolerated the most about the other captain. Unfailingly, unwaveringly, inexplicably positive all the fucking time. Her cheerfulness was so ubiquitous and loud that in its absence Catra felt more lifeless than the desert surrounding them. 

It was gone for quite some time. Entrapta’s banishment whittled the Super Pal Trio back down to its original Duo, and Catra was too focused on doing what she did best--destroying what remained of the Rebellion--to see just how long it took Scorpia to get back to her typical, obnoxious, happy self. Maybe she wasn’t  _ quite _ the same, but Catra didn’t care. She stuck around. If she hadn’t left at this point, she never was going to. Catra would  _ always  _ have Scorpia. It didn’t matter that she now dressed after each of their hookups and left for her own bed. It didn’t matter that she no longer kissed the brunette’s head or hugged her quite as tightly or praised her just as often as she had before. Catra certainly did not miss the affection, certainly had not grown accustomed to the validation the taller woman so consistently and so selflessly provided. 

_ You don’t matter, so no else does either.  _ Catra didn’t need anyone...but Scorpia’s ever-present presence had her believing that Scorpia needed Catra. Such weakness was acceptable in an underling. It meant the white-haired captain would remain loyal and remain true and simply  _ remain. _

“I mean, how can you possibly be this  _ useless?! _ ” Even as the words left her mouth, Catra knew she was being too harsh. But she was exhausted, and so much was riding on Scorpia just doing the bare minimum, it wasn’t that hard, even a fool could have found Entrapta’s recordings. But she failed, and the feline snapped. “What?!” 

“You’re a bad friend.” A slap across the face would have hurt less. Scorpia  _ never _ called Catra ‘bad.’ Even when she banished Entrapta, even when she opened the portal and brought the world to the brink of collapse, Scorpia still looked at her with stars in her eyes. Certainly, Catra had done and said worse things to her before this...why, now, of all times, was this the final straw on the camel’s back? Scorpia walked away before the brunette could ask. 

Even if Hordak wasn’t waiting for her, Catra wouldn’t have chased after the captain. People chased after  _ her _ , not the other way around. “Get over it!” She screamed at the Horde’s leader. “You don’t need a princess in your life telling you what to do!” Who was she talking to? Who was she talking  _ about _ ? Hordak, about Entrapta? Herself? Dark eyes topped with a shock of white hair blended with a silly poof of blonde locks and slate irises, and she couldn’t tell the difference. It didn’t matter. 

It still didn’t matter, Catra told herself, standing in Scorpia’s empty room, her comms link crackling with feedback from the princess’s abandoned badge.  _ I’m stronger without Adora. I can be stronger without Scorpia too.  _ As long as she was awake and working and scheming, it was true. The Horde was unstoppable under her leadership. She told herself it felt better than the power she felt in the Wastes, better than the happiness she could have had but let slip.  _ This,  _ right here, effectively first-in-command of the entire Horde legion, all of Etheria quaking at her feet, was better than  _ anything _ she and Scorpia would have had. Better than anything she and Adora whispered about together under the barrack’s thin blankets, making what proved to be empty promises of what they would change once they ruled together. Catra was beholden to no one but herself now. Hordak was too wrapped up in his clones and his experiments and his unresolved feelings for Entrapta to effectively lead anything. 

So necessary and in-demand she was, Catra rarely had time to herself, and it suited her just fine. Alone meant there was nothing and no one to distract her from the dreams that Scorpia’s affections quieted. Ever since she left the Magicat, Adora still relentlessly came to her in her nightmares, and so too did the white-haired woman. Catra didn’t trust anyone with her body now.  _ If you want something done right, you do it yourself.  _ For the past two years, “it” meant “running the Horde.” Of late, however, “it” became “herself.” With her shirt bunched in her mouth to muffle her moans, she shoved her hand between her legs and fucked herself mercilessly and quickly. She tried not to imagine, tried to focus on her own muscles shifting tightly under her touch, but her brain didn’t always listen to her. Sometimes Scorpia would join her in her bed, a soft smile stretching over her sweet lips as she lowered her too-kind face to lay between Catra’s thighs. Other times, Adora’s muscle-bound arms would wrap around her from behind, her hair spilling over the feline’s shoulder and her fingers replacing Catra’s. When they spoke, crooning words only lovers used like  _ good _ and  _ beautiful, _ it got hard to distinguish the two women. It was only in these moments of intimate privacy that the Magicat realized just how similar her former friends were. They were both incredibly strong. They were both disgustingly good. And they both looked at Catra, took in all her features and flaws and struggles, and said “you’re not worth sticking around for.” 

_ You don’t matter.  _ If that wasn’t the fucking truth. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you or anyone has experienced pain or suffering as a result of this story, please call 1-800-This-Author-Is-A-Bitch and leave a comment at the tone :D


End file.
